UseTransit Privacy Policy
Version 1.1 - posted and effective as of August 21, 2026.
Version 1.0 posted on March 1, 2022 and effective until and including August 20, 2026.
UseTransit is operated by TransitFare & Systems Ltd ("TransitFare," "we," "us," or "our"), an Ontario, Canada corporation. This Privacy Policy describes how we collect, use, disclose, and protect your personal information when you use the UseTransit website, the UseTransit iOS and Android apps, UseTransit SMS and email alerts, and related services (together, the "Services").
This policy is incorporated into the UseTransit Terms of Use, which also govern your use of the Services, including its limitation of liability.
1. UseTransit and Your Transit Agency
How the Services work. UseTransit is operated by TransitFare and is provided to riders on behalf of transit agencies that use our platform. We are accountable to you for the personal information in our possession or custody, including information we transfer to a service provider for processing, and you can exercise your privacy rights directly with us - see Section 8.
Your transit agency's role. Transit agencies use UseTransit for fare collection, transit alerts, trip planning, and related rider services. Your agency can access the information in your UseTransit account so it can provide and support the services you use, and it can export account information (including your name, email address, phone number, linked fare cards, and card history) into its own systems where it needs to. When you buy a fare through UseTransit, the fare is sold by, or on behalf of, your transit agency, and the transaction record is created for the agency's fare and revenue systems. The same applies to fare validation and ride history used for revenue auditing.
Making requests. You can exercise your privacy rights directly with us - see Section 8. If your agency holds its own copy of information exported from UseTransit, that copy is subject to the agency's privacy policy, and our deletion of your account does not reach it. If you send us a request about information held by your agency, we will forward it to the agency and tell you we have done so - you do not need to contact the agency yourself, though you may. Where your agency is a public body, it may also have its own statutory process for records requests, which you are free to use.
Transit agencies and other organizations. If you are a transit agency or other organization with a Master Services Agreement ("MSA") with TransitFare, the data and privacy terms of that MSA govern your relationship with us and prevail over this policy.
2. Information We Collect
Account information. Depending on how you use UseTransit, we collect:
- Alert subscriptions only ("lite login"): your email address or mobile phone number, and the alerts you subscribe to. We do not collect your name and you do not have an account profile.
- Full UseTransit account: your name, email address, mobile phone number, and the transit agency or agencies you select.
Transaction information. Fare products purchased, linked fare cards and card history, transaction history, and payment tokens. Fares bought through UseTransit are sold by, or on behalf of, your transit agency - see Section 1. We do not store full payment card numbers.
Location information. If you enable location features, precise device location, trip origin and destination, and any locations you choose to save (such as "Home" or "Work"). Location features are optional and are off unless you turn them on.
Session and security information. Your IP address and information about your sign-in session, which we use to keep you signed in and to protect your account.
Diagnostic information. Device type and operating system, app and site interactions, crash logs, and performance telemetry. Some of this is associated with your device or your account; the rest is not linked to you at all.
Preferences. Favourite routes and stops, alert settings, and notification preferences.
Eligibility categories. Where your transit agency offers reduced fares, categories such as "Student" or "Senior" that you provide or that your agency configures. We do not infer these from your behaviour.
2.1 Cookies and on-device storage
We use cookies to identify and maintain your sign-in session. These are necessary for the Services to work - without them you cannot stay signed in.
Some of your settings, such as favourite stops, are stored in a data store on your own device rather than on our servers. You can clear this at any time by clearing your browser data or the app's storage, or by uninstalling the app.
If you turn on optional analytics, that feature may also use cookies or similar technologies. We do not use advertising cookies, tracking pixels, or third-party advertising SDKs.
2.2 De-identified and aggregated information
We may process your information to produce aggregated and de-identified information that cannot reasonably be used to identify you. We maintain measures designed to prevent re-identification, and we treat this information as non-personal. We may retain and use it for lawful business purposes, including understanding transit trends and improving the Services.
3. How We Use Your Information
We use personal information where it is necessary to provide the Services you ask for, where the law requires it, or where you have consented.
To operate your account and the Services. Create and manage your account, verify your identity, deliver alerts you subscribe to, process fare purchases, apply your agency's fare rules, provide support, detect and prevent abuse of our systems, and fix problems.
Location. We use location information solely to deliver the features you request, such as trip planning and nearby stops. We do not use it to infer characteristics about you and we do not use it for advertising.
Analytics. Optional analytics are off by default and run only if you turn them on. You can turn them off again at any time.
We do not sell or share your personal information. We do not use your personal information for targeted advertising or cross-context behavioural advertising, we do not disclose it to third parties for their own direct marketing, and we do not sell or share the personal information of anyone we know to be under 16.
3.1 Messages you receive from us
Service messages. While your account is active, we send messages needed to operate it - verification codes, receipts, security notices, and notices about changes to these terms. These are not promotional and cannot be turned off without closing your account.
Transit alerts. Alerts about delays, disruptions, and service changes are optional. You choose which agencies and alerts you receive, and you can change or stop them at any time.
SMS. If you subscribe to SMS alerts, message frequency varies with transit service conditions, and message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to any message to opt out. Reply HELP for assistance, or contact us at help@usetransit.com or 1-888-477-1103. Consent to receive messages is not required to use UseTransit. Opting out of SMS does not delete a full UseTransit account or your saved subscription preferences.
4. When We Disclose Your Information
Your transit agency. Your agency can access your UseTransit account information so it can provide and support the services you use, and can export it into its own systems where it needs to. We also share ticket identifiers and ride history with your agency for fare validation and revenue audit purposes.
Service providers. We use trusted providers for hosting, payment processing, SMS and email delivery, analytics, and customer support. We require them by contract to protect your information and to use it only to provide services to us. Some providers, such as payment processors, may also process limited information to meet their own legal and regulatory obligations.
Legal and safety. We may disclose information where required by law, to respond to lawful requests, to enforce our terms, or to protect the rights or safety of any person.
Business transfers. If TransitFare is involved in a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, or sale of all or part of its business or assets, your information, including aggregated information, may be disclosed to and transferred to the acquiring or successor entity as part of that transaction. The successor's use of your information will remain subject to this policy or to a policy providing comparable protection. If such a transaction is completed, we will notify you within a reasonable time that your information has been transferred.
5. Automated Processing
We use automated processing in limited ways: to calculate fare caps and transfer discounts from your transaction history, to suggest routes based on trips you have taken, and to detect automated abuse of our systems, such as bulk or bot sign-ups. We do not use automated processing to infer characteristics about you.
If we restrict your account based only on automated processing, we will tell you, and you may ask a person to review the decision.
Payment fraud screening. Screening of fare purchases for payment fraud is performed by the payment processor engaged for your transit agency's fare sales, under that processor's own systems and policies. We do not perform it and we do not make those decisions. If a purchase is declined or flagged, contact us at help@usetransit.com and we will help you take it up with your transit agency or its processor.
6. Where Your Information Is Stored
We operate separate systems for Canada and the United States. Unless we have agreed otherwise with your transit agency, information associated with a Canadian transit agency is hosted on our Canadian application servers and databases. Information associated with a United States transit agency is hosted on our United States application servers and databases. If you use agencies in both countries, your information in each system is held separately.
Three things happen outside the primary hosting location, and you should know about them:
- Service providers. Payment processors, messaging providers, analytics providers, and support tools may process information in other countries. We use largely the same providers for both our Canadian and United States systems.
- Backups, disaster recovery, and system logs. Encrypted backups, disaster-recovery copies, system logs, and security monitoring data may be stored in other jurisdictions to keep the platform reliable and secure.
- Support access. Our authorized personnel may access information from outside the primary hosting location to provide technical support, maintenance, and security monitoring, over secure encrypted connections and under confidentiality obligations.
Where information is processed or accessible in another country, it may be accessible to the courts, law enforcement, and national security authorities of that country. We use contractual, technical, and organizational safeguards to protect it. If we change where information is hosted, we will update this policy.
7. How We Protect Your Information
We use commercially reasonable physical, technical, and administrative safeguards designed to protect your information. These currently include measures such as:
- Encryption of sensitive information in transit and at rest, using industry-standard protocols.
- Access controls limiting access to production systems to authorized personnel on a least-privilege basis.
- Secure development practices informed by recognized standards such as OWASP, with periodic security assessments and code review.
- Monitoring of system activity to detect and respond to unusual behaviour.
- Backups to protect against loss.
These measures are described at a general level and may change as technology and risks evolve. The specific security commitments we make to a transit agency are set out in our agreement with that agency, and this policy does not add to or alter them.
No system is completely secure. If a breach affecting your personal information occurs, we will notify you and the relevant authorities as required by law.
Your part. Keep your account credentials confidential, use a strong and unique password, sign out on shared devices, and tell us immediately at help@usetransit.com if you think someone else has accessed your account.
8. Your Rights
- Access. Get a copy of the personal information we hold about you, along with information about how it has been used and the types of organizations to which it may have been disclosed.
- Correction. Have inaccurate or incomplete information corrected.
- Deletion - full UseTransit account. Delete your account yourself, at any time. Sign in to your account at usetransit.com in any browser or in the UseTransit app, select the option to delete your account, and confirm the request. Because you are signed in when you do this, no further identity verification is needed. Full steps are at usetransit.com/delete-account.
- Deletion - alert subscriptions (lite login). Unsubscribe from all alerts. This ends your subscription and removes your email address or phone number from our subscriber records. We keep it on a do-not-contact list so that we do not message you again - see Section 9. You can also stop SMS alerts at any time by replying STOP to any message.
- Withdraw consent. Withdraw consent for optional uses of your information, such as optional alerts, analytics, or location features, at any time - subject to legal and contractual restrictions. If you withdraw consent that is necessary to operate your account, we may no longer be able to provide the Services, and we will tell you before we act on your request.
- Data portability. Request a copy of your account information in a structured, commonly used electronic format.
- Non-discrimination. We will not deny you service, charge you a different price, or give you a lower quality of service because you exercised a privacy right.
- Authorized agent. Where the law provides for it, you may authorize someone to make a request on your behalf. We may ask you to confirm the authorization directly.
What deletion does. When you delete your account, we remove the personal information that identifies you - your name, email address, phone number, saved locations, subscriptions, and preferences. Records that must remain for your transit agency's fare and revenue systems, such as transaction and validation records, are retained without the information that links them to you, so they no longer identify you. If your agency holds its own copy of information exported from UseTransit, our deletion does not reach it - see Section 1.
How to make a request. Deletion, consent withdrawal, and preference changes are self-serve - sign in to your UseTransit account and use the controls there. For any other request, or if you cannot sign in, email help@usetransit.com or call 1-888-477-1103. If you cannot regain access to your account, you may ask us to delete it on your behalf.
Verification. Requests you make while signed in to your account are authenticated by that sign-in and are actioned directly. For requests made by email or phone, we verify your identity using reasonable methods before acting, to make sure we are not disclosing or deleting your information at someone else's request.
Response times. We respond to requests within 30 days where Canadian privacy law applies, and within 45 days where your local law provides a longer period. If the law permits an extension and we need one, we will tell you before the original deadline, explain why, and tell you when to expect our response. We provide access to your information at no cost, or at a minimal cost we tell you about in advance and that you agree to before we proceed.
If we decline. We will tell you why and identify the legal basis. You may ask us to reconsider by contacting our Privacy Officer, and you may complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada or to your provincial or state privacy regulator.
9. How Long We Keep Your Information
We keep personal information only as long as necessary for the purposes described in this policy.
| Information | Retention |
|---|---|
| Account profile - name, email, phone number, saved locations, subscriptions, preferences, reduced-fare eligibility category | Kept while your account is active. Deleted within 30 days of a confirmed deletion request. |
| Alert subscription (lite login) - email address or phone number | Kept while you are subscribed. Removed from our subscriber records when you unsubscribe from all alerts, and kept on a do-not-contact list so that we do not message you again. |
| Fare purchase, validation, and card history records - including payment tokens | Kept while your transit agency uses UseTransit, and for any period required by law or reasonably necessary for database integrity and audit. When you delete your account, the information linking these records to you is removed and they no longer identify you. If your agency stops using UseTransit, these records are deleted within 30 days after its access ends, except where a law or legal hold requires us to keep specific records. |
| Session and security information - IP address, sign-in session data | Session data ends when your session ends. Security log entries containing your IP address are kept for no longer than 12 months. |
| Diagnostic information - device type, interactions, crash logs, telemetry | Where this information is associated with your account, it is de-linked when your account is deleted. Diagnostic information that does not identify you is kept as non-personal information for product reliability and improvement. |
| Cookies and on-device storage | Session cookies expire when your session ends. Settings stored on your device stay there until you clear your browser data or app storage, or uninstall the app. |
| Consent, opt-out, and deletion records | We keep a record of your consent, of any opt-out request, and of any deletion request, so that we can prove consent and show that we acted on your request. These records are kept for three years after the event. Do-not-contact entries are kept for as long as we operate the alert service, so that we do not contact you again. |
| Aggregated and de-identified information | May be kept indefinitely, as it cannot reasonably identify you. |
| Legal obligations | Where the law, a legal hold, or an unresolved dispute requires us to keep specific information, we keep only what is required, and only for as long as the obligation lasts. |
10. Children
The Services are not directed to children under 13. Accounts for minors must be set up and managed by a parent or legal guardian, and we treat the information in those accounts as the adult account holder's information. If you believe a child under 13 has given us personal information, contact us at help@usetransit.com and we will delete it.
11. Regional Information
11.1 Canada
Accountability. TransitFare is accountable for the personal information in its possession or custody, including information transferred to a service provider for processing. Our Privacy Officer is responsible for our compliance with this policy and with the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act ("PIPEDA"). Contact details are in Section 13.
Consent. We collect, use, and disclose personal information with your knowledge and consent, except where PIPEDA permits or requires otherwise. The form of consent we seek reflects the sensitivity of the information. You may withdraw consent as described in Section 8, on reasonable notice and subject to legal and contractual restrictions.
Access requests. We respond to access requests within 30 days, or within an extended period where PIPEDA permits and we have told you before the original deadline. Access is provided at no cost or at minimal cost, disclosed to you in advance.
Cross-border processing. As described in Section 6, your information may be processed, backed up, or accessed for support from outside Canada, and may be accessible to the authorities of those jurisdictions.
Challenging our compliance. You may challenge our compliance with this policy or with PIPEDA by contacting our Privacy Officer. We will investigate all complaints, respond to you, and take corrective action where a complaint is justified. If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada at priv.gc.ca or 1-800-282-1376.
Québec residents. If you are a resident of Québec, you have additional rights under Québec privacy law, including rights of access, correction, de-indexing, and portability. Contact our Privacy Officer to exercise them.
11.2 United States
We offer the rights described in Section 8 (access, correction, deletion, portability, withdrawal of consent, and non-discrimination) to all residents of the United States, regardless of which state you live in and regardless of whether your state's law requires us to. If your state's law gives you a right that is not listed in Section 8, contact us and we will honour it in accordance with that law.
We do not sell or share your personal information, we do not use it for targeted or cross-context behavioural advertising, and we do not disclose it to third parties for their own direct marketing. Precise location is collected only if you turn location features on, is used solely to provide the features you request, and is never used to infer characteristics about you.
The categories of information we collect are set out in Section 2, who we disclose them to in Section 4, and how long we keep them in Section 9.
12. Changes to This Policy
We may update this policy. When we do, we will post the new version here with a new version number and effective date, and archive the previous version. If a change materially reduces your rights or increases your obligations, we will give you at least 30 days' notice by email, in-app notice, or a prominent notice on our website before it takes effect, and we may ask you to accept the new policy before continuing to use the Services.
13. Contact Us
UseTransit - operated by TransitFare & Systems Ltd
Attention: Privacy Officer
Unit 42 - 760 Birchmount Road
Toronto, ON M1K 5H8
Canada
Email: help@usetransit.com
Phone: 1-888-477-1103